‘Magnolias’ take stage OTA lines up hit play for next production
Sequim standout
Nature’s classroom
B&G leader earns national award
Nonprofit aims at educating through experience A-7
A-3
B-1
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
SEQUIM GAZETTE www
Sequim’s Hometown Newspaper
com
75 CENTS
Vol. 42, Number 13
City nixes rental deal
The view from the Sequim Civic Center’s patio overlooks nearby properties on Spruce Street that have had 144 incidents reported to law enforcement from 2010-2014. City officials broke off negotiations recently to rent the properties for parking due to a failure to find a mutual lease agreement with the properties’ owner. Sequim Gazette photo by Matthew Nash
Officials say plan was to alleviate crime, improve neighborhood by MATTHEW NASH
Civic Center are over for now. City Manager Steve Burkett told Sequim city councilors Negotiations for the City of on March 23 that they stopped Sequim to rent two adjacent talks to rent 161 and 169 W. properties next to the new Spruce St. owned by Ron Sequim Gazette
Fairclough for parking up to 10 public works vehicles. “We called it off,” Burkett saidd. “We reached a stalemate in terms of negotiations. They (Fairclough and his brother-in-law Bud Pedersen) thought it was
See CITY, A-8
Natural Resources program faces its final year
Sequim man’s survival suit a technology breakthrough
Teacher aims to modify, maintain
by PATRICIA MORRISON COATE Sequim Gazette
by ALANA LINDEROTH Sequim Gazette
One of three skill center satellite programs within the Sequim School District is on the chopping board. The end of the academic year may be the end of the North Olympic Peninsula Skill Center’s Natural Resources program that engages students from Sequim, Port Angeles, Forks and LaPush. “The Natural Resources program gives students opportunities to define themselves from a young age as engaged, productive citizens,” LIBERMAN Daniel Lieberman, Natural Resources program teacher, said. “ T hroug h t he Nat ura l Resources classes, students earn credit and obtain skills, schools gain additional options that fit diverse learners and community organizations connect with and train
See NATURAL, A-13
Sequim Gazette photo by Michael Dashiell
Sweet SHS send-off It’s an emotional (almost) last day for Janet and Dan Peterson at Sequim High School last week. The two school district employees were set to retire, so SHS staffers surprised the pair with a “go tunnel” — where students and staff form a kind of human tunnel — on the school campus on March 25, capped by performances from the Sequim High School band and flag team. Janet Peterson worked for SHS for 17 years as Associated Student Body secretary while her husband Dan worked for the district for 19 years, as a custodian at Greywolf and Helen Haller Elementary before shifting to Sequim High. “Totally surprised,” Janet Peterson said soon after the celebration. “I’m leaving a job I loved every single day. Who gets to do that?” She said she and Dan are headed to work in visitor services at Grand Teton National Park, part of the U.S. National Park Service, before spending some time this coming winter in Arizona.
For more than a decade, Sequim business partners Bob Duncan and Bob Groff knew their heat-generating, coldwater immersion suit could and would save seamen’s lives — if only someone dared to dream as they had. In 2011, the engineers at Colema n / Stearns did, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard in 2013, and next month, as the Bob Groff, right, assists Bob Duncan owners of Lati- in putting on their now-marketed tude 98, Dun- Thermashield 24+ Immersion Suit. can and Groff Sequim Gazette photo by Patricia will head to Morrison Coate London, England, as one of four finalists in the Sea Trade Awards under the category of “Safety at Sea.” “It’s a lot of prestige. It’s the Super Bowl of safety,” Duncan said. “I’m the business side and Bob is the techie side,” Groff noted. “We started looking at the best way to take it to market and the options were to manufacture it ourselves or to get help from the (Clallam) EDC. We saw it was not going to be feasible for us to manufacture it on our own.” Now marketed through Stearns and their own
See SURVIVAL, A-13
Access, affordability challenge for patients Free visits decline at Dungeness Health and Wellness Clinic, but need continues by PATRICIA MORRISON COATE
Clinic, which serves uninsured and underinsured patients, saw its urgent care visits decrease by 34 In its annual report for 2014, the percent and its chronic care visits Dungeness Health and Wellness drop by 28 percent over 2013. Sequim Gazette
That begs the question: Is there less of a need for its free medical services by the working poor and if so, why? “It’s a mixed bag,” GIBBS said Rose Gibbs, RN, the clinic’s director. “With the
Affordable Care Act, some of our lower-income working people have had a chance to qualify and a lot were able to do it. In early 2014, they were able to get into a (primary care) provider but that came to a crashing halt later in the year because the demand for providers exceeded the supply.”
The impact of the ACA was a double-edged sword — good because many previously denied patients could qualify for health care insurance but bad because there were no local providers to take them. Lack of access became the real challenge.
See PATIENTS, A-9
Sports B-5 • Schools B-7 • Arts & Entertainment B-1 • Opinion A-10 • Obituaries A-12 • Classifieds C-1 • Crossword Section C
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